The Catastrophe Of My TV Personality

I, for one, thoroughly enjoyed last night’s première of the second season of “Mad Men,” AMC’s drama about advertising, rye whiskey, chiselled jawlines, and other things that pretty much sell themselves. Back in season one, it was copies of Ayn Rand’s books being bandied about the office, but this season it seems that Rand’s been shelved, at least for now. In addition to a prescription for Phenobarbital, Don Draper, the lead jawline, gets a copy of Frank O’Hara’s “Meditations in an Emergency,” in which he reads, “Now I am quietly waiting for the catastrophe of my personality to seem beautiful again, and interesting, and modern,” before mailing the book to a mysterious recipient. But surely Don identifies more with a different passage: “I am the least difficult of men. All I want is boundless love,” and not only because “Boundless Love” would be the perfect name for a really popular cologne.—Jenna Krajeski